


summer blows away and quietly gets swallowed by a wave

by rosedale



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 11:05:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12131100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosedale/pseuds/rosedale
Summary: Celaena's favorite place in the world is the passenger seat of Chaol's car on long summer drives, her hand in his as they speed toward some unknown horizon.Late summer brings with it the sense of an ending.





	summer blows away and quietly gets swallowed by a wave

Summer for Celaena consists of a lot of waiting at the end of the estate’s winding driveway, where her uncle’s guard tips his hat and lets her out of the gates. On Friday afternoons, she sits on the hot asphalt of the cul-de-sac, painting her nails and tingling with anticipation. When Chaol’s convertible finally pulls up in front of her, she’s on her feet and sliding in before he can even get out to open the door for her. His hello and routine apology for being late (city traffic, he rushes to explain) are drowned out in her laugh as she leans over the center console to press a glad kiss to his mouth.

Celaena’s favorite place in the world is the passenger seat of Chaol’s car. It’s a place where she feels at ease, checking her makeup in the visor and tuning the radio and trailing her hand out of the window. When he puts the top of the car down, her hair blows around in the wind. Sometimes she reads to him, bare legs propped on the dashboard. Being next to him warms her from the inside out so that her toes curl and her heart flutters against her ribcage. Chaol makes her feel wholly safe from everything, everything except her own feelings for him as they engulf her more and more completely.

On these drives, time stops around them and they are forever caught in a limbo of carefreeness and heat and sunlight reflecting off the water. It isn’t often that they get to be together like this anymore, with Chaol having graduated and being occupied with his government appointment in the city. In September Celaena will return to college on the west coast and they won’t see each other for months. But here on weekend afternoons, as one of Chaol’s strong hands shifts the gear and then comes to affectionately rub circles onto her thigh, Celaena imagines that summer will never end.

Chaol likes to take her upstate, where they can spend some time in the forested foothills and around the many lakes which dot the area like big blue splotches on his maps. He says the mountains and the wild, secluded areas remind him of where he grew up. She sees it in his face then, the thoughts of home and family and duty surfacing and pulling him somewhere distant before she takes his hands and brings him back near. 

Celaena clings to these moments that define them, together: pink ice-cream melting down the side of a shared waffle cone, faint bird calls in the trees, the crimson-and-gold sunset pouring onto them from between the mountains—the weight of Chaol’s head resting on her collarbone as they stretch out on the ground and whisper of hopes and dreams. In the coolness of dusk, they learn how to maneuver themselves so they both fit in his backseat, his mouth kissing a question down the line of her neck and his fingers pulling insistently at the button of her shorts. Celaena never wants to lose this memory of summer, of their skin burning as they touch and of her lover’s eyes, bright and molten as he searches her face.

At nights, driving home in the dark, Celaena pretends that life is nothing but this, only her and Chaol as the headlights slant onto the road and lead them home. She pretends that the world drops away and they’ll stay in this car forever. It’s a form of delusion—they say love’s not time’s fool but the unspoken truth between them is that as surely as this drive must end, so too must this halcyon summer together. Celaena knows this and yet forgets this every time she sees Chaol’s face—

Chaol’s smile for her is like the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Written largely in 2013, right after CoM came out, to put all my sad Celaena/Chaol feels together. Obviously this is a modern AU, but I wanted to capture in this the same wistfulness and sadness that the end of CoM brought for Chaolaena.


End file.
